BAY LEADERS CALL FOR RADICAL NEW ACTIONS
38 BAY LEADERS CALL FOR RADICAL NEW ACTIONS TO RESTORE THE BAY
FOR RELEASE: 12:00 noon, December 30, 2009
A consortium of senior Chesapeake Bay scientists, policy makers, and Bay advocates meeting in Annapolis called for an end to the politics of postponement and urged the Obama Administration and the Bay states to adopt 24 bold new initiatives to restore the Chesapeake Bay. The group cited the failure of the 26 year old voluntary, collaborative approach under the EPA Bay Program and the repeated failure of the states and federal government to meet deadlines for pollution reduction goals, including the recent postponement until 2025 of Bay clean-up goals set in 2000 for 2010.
This remarkable group of 38 Bay leaders from Maryland and Virginia unanimously agreed on the bold – even radical – steps that must be taken to stop the continued degradation of the Bay (see attached statement). The Bay leaders found that the draft Bay restoration strategy under the President’s Bay Executive Order does not add sufficient new tools, regulations, penalties, and enforcement strategies to improve water quality in the Chesapeake, especially for nonpoint sources of Bay-choking nutrients and sediment from the major source of Bay pollution, agriculture, and from abusive land development. The Bay leaders urged the federal agencies and states to not allow the agribusiness and development industry opponents to derail efforts to better regulate these major sources of Bay pollution, declaring that "aggressive actions in nutrient and sediment loading from agriculture and development are critical to restoring the Bay. Without these the Bay is doomed." Serious concerns were noted over what we already see as a recent retrenchment by EPA from some of the proposed enhanced regulatory measures under the draft plan in the areas of nutrient loading from CAFOs and nutrient and sediment loading from new and existing development.
The signatories have called for monitoring and mandatory enforceable measures to reduce farm manure and fertilizers from polluting the Bay with nutrients. These measures include requirements for whole farm water quality plans for all agricultural lands including the next generation of nutrient management, with clear targets, an implementation schedule, and enforcement. A significant expansion of the CAFO designation to include nearly all AFOs (Animal Feeding Operations) is called for as is EPA subjecting all agricultural lands receiving manure to Clean Water Act permits with enforcement assured. All land disposal of animal manure should be subject to the same regulation as Maryland’s requirements for the land disposal of human sludge from advanced wastewater treatment facilities, including requiring manure to be amended into soils within 24 hours of application. Cover crops should be required on all agricultural lands on which manure is applied.
While finding that reducing agricultural nutrients and sediment loadings may be the immediate challenge, offsetting the effects of population growth and development by 100% is essential to maintaining any progress made by other sectors. Better growth control measures are essential and the EPA should require completely offsetting growth related loads elsewhere with a new requirement added for no net increases in stormwater discharge rate, volume, and pollutants for all new development. The Bay leaders also urged the EPA to implement a retrofit requirement for existing developed areas and that a no net loss of forest coverage in the Bay watershed be mandated with expanded forested buffer coverage for at least 85% of all the shores of the Bay and its tributaries.
Dr. William Dennison, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, Cambridge declared: "The current Bay Program and restoration efforts have been insufficient and are failing to achieve water quality to assure healthy populations of oysters, clams, and finfish. We must act quickly to transition from the voluntary collaborative approach that has failed to a comprehensive regulatory program that addresses the prime sources of nutrient and sediment pollution, especially from farm and development pollution, or watch the Bay die a death of 1,000 cuts. Drastic change is called for."
The Bay leaders recommended that all wastewater treatment plants should be required to meet stringent nutrient discharge limits of no more than 3.0 mg/l nitrogen and 0.3 mg/l phosphorus. A requirement for all new and upgraded septic systems to utilize the best available technology for nitrogen removal was supported as was a call for better federal controls on air emissions.
Many of the signatories who have developed and signed onto the statements include officials who were instrumental in beginning the formal Bay restoration program in December 1983, including former Governor Harry Hughes, aptly called the father of the Bay restoration efforts. Governor Hughes said "Like most people concerned over the Chesapeake Bay’s decline, I have been very disappointed with the lack of progress in restoring the Bay. We must take the bold new initiatives outlined in our statements and act now or see the Bay’s sad decline continue. We have a great opportunity with the Obama focus on the Bay through the Executive Order."
Other signatories instrumental in the development and adoption of the 1983 Bay Initiatives include Secretaries of Natural Resources for Virginia and Maryland, Tayloe Murphy and Torrey Brown, respectively, former head of the Maryland environmental agency Bill Eichbaum, and former state Senators Bernie Fowler and Gerald Winegrad. Former Governor Glendening, U.S. Senator Tydings, Congressman Gilchrest, and current Maryland State Senators and environmental leaders Brian Frosh and Paul Pinsky also signed the statements as have note Bay author and professor Tom Horton. Senior scientists who were instrumental in developing the 24 critical steps to saving the Bay include leading Maryland and Virginia Bay researchers with more than 200 years of combined Bay research.
Leading Bay advocacy groups have joined in and helped develop and support the call for bold new actions, including the Riverkeepers, Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Maryland League of Conservation Voters, National Wildlife Federation Bay Office, and Environment MD, VA, and America.
Former State Senator Gerald Winegrad said "The federal government declared the blue crab fishery a disaster but this disaster declaration could equally apply to Bay oysters, shad, eels, soft clams, and sturgeon. We have so poisoned our waters that reports abound of serious infections in humans who come in contact with Bay waters, fish kills are common, rockfish are contaminated with mercury, catfish have been found to have cancerous lesions, male bass from the Potomac are turning up with female egg sacs, and swimmers are advised to avoid the Bay and its tributaries after heavy rains. If we had thought of a doomsday scenario for the Bay when we began restoration efforts in 1983, the current state of the Bay would be it. Sadly, it has become a nightmarish reality. We need to act boldly and decisively now or the Bay will die ecologically."
The specific measures in the statement have been submitted as formal comments to key members of the Obama Administration who are responsible for developing and implementing a Bay restoration strategy due on May 12, 2010 under the President’s Bay Executive Order. State officials also are being challenged to adopt the measures. The group also urged Congressional leaders to enact a strengthened version of the Cardin/Cummings legislation, the Chesapeake Clean Water and Ecosystem Restoration Act of 2009 (S 1816/ HR 3852).
Tayloe Murphy, Virginia’s former Secretary of Natural Resources, stated: "As a Virginian who deeply cares about the Bay, I am distraught at the failure of the current Bay program to produce the agreed upon improvements to water quality and restore a dying Bay. We must act now and implement strong measures to control the main source of Bay pollution–farm fertilizers, manure, and sediment–as well as control the increasing pollutants from development. We simply cannot afford any more postponements of the necessary actions detailed in our joint statement. We are squandering our natural heritage and the measures detailed in our statements are critical to turn this around." Download the 24 planks here.
